Starstruck
by The Brat Prince
Summary: Being loved by this man, by this creature…it’s not gentle, not kind. It’s being cherished by something as fierce and primal as a lion. Maybe loving him does a little to tame the beast within, but it's more like being caged myself, so why bother? Slash.
1. If I Had To Choose A Way To Die

**Starstruck**

_Chapter One: If I Had To Choose A Way To Die It'd Be With You_

By: Jondy Macmillan

A/N: I'm a bad, bad person. This brings the count of my SP fics up to what, eight? Gaaaaah. None of which are complete. Well, YCNGB will be complete soon, and I think NBtR is going to be pretty short at that. Which will bring me back down to…six? Shit. Gah. But I HAD to! The writing gods called, and I answered. Oh, and uh…I do not speak French. The only accents I'm used to interpreting are Asian/Indian/Hispanic…and my knowledge of British slang is limited to Harry Potter, Doctor Who, and Skins. So…uh…yeah. Don't expect much on that front. I shall try valiantly, and probably fall flat on my face. I figure at about twenty something their accents would have lessened anyway. At least that's what I'm telling myself to feel better.

* * *

The things they say about love; they're wrong. I've never understood why things like obsession and passion are thought to be amoral. Why does love have to be gentle, kind, and that's all? How can you say that the bad aspects of human emotion aren't a part of love? It's supposed to be all consuming, right? How can it be any one thing, and how can you say there aren't evil bits, like falling in love is ever cut and dry?

I'll tell you the truth. Love is horrifying. Falling for someone is a sloppy, messy affair. Its pain, and it's the worst kind of pain, because it can be wonderful. Love makes everyone a masochist. Love makes everyone a sadist. It's intoxicating to know that somebody is under your complete control, and terrifying to know that you're in their thrall too.

If people were of one sort, perhaps love would be solely gentle, and solely kind. But people aren't. People are slobs. They're vindictive. They're hateful. They're full of shit. They'll always abandon you. Love is just another name for letting someone destroy you. And you'll submit to it, willingly, all in the name of…well, you know.

My head's underwater. His fingers on my neck are like iron. My face is numb. I can't breathe. I wonder if I ever will again. He must sense my thought, because I feel his bruising grip on my neck pull me up. He lets me take a few gasping, panting breaths before pushing me back down into the icy rush. And I let him. I don't struggle, denying even my instinct to survive. Of course I can only deny it for so long before I feel my lungs ready to burst. I open my mouth, welcoming the stream into my esophagus, my stomach. I squint my eyes closed, silently screaming bubbles, and I hope the water steals my life from me before he can. I would really hate to think that I died for love.

He pulls me back out of the water as my vision begins to go black. So much for wishes. I can feel him pumping hard on my chest. He's going to crack one of my ribs. He's not even being careful.

"Sheet," he curses, his voice harsh and grating. I always told him that he smoked too much. He used to have this amazing voice. He used to be able to sing. He ruined it. He ruins everything.

I feel my stomach heaving. The water gushes from my mouth like a gurgling brook, a waterfall. It's still cold, freezing my innards on the way out. His fingers are like wintry steel, and I can feel them pressing into my abdomen. He's chanting, "Breaze, breaze, breaze. You bastard, breaze."

At first I don't even understand what the chant means. Breeze? What breeze? There's practically gale force winds out, but I'd hardly call them a…oh. Breathe. He wants me to breathe.

It makes me want to hold my breath until I'm blue in the face. I want to keep the water in my stomach like some kind of poison, chilling me from the inside out. Against my will, my eyes flicker open. I see him staring at me, his golden-brown lion's eyes glaring down at me, fiercely protective. Even if he's the one who was hurting me in the first place. Fine. I exhale.

Now I'm panting to catch my breath, to keep my stomach from churning a second time. It would serve him right if I heaved all over his camo pants. I imagine a big fat pile of vomit staining the front of his black wife beater. It gives me twisted satisfaction.

"You are mad," he observes. See, and people say the French have tiny brains.

"No," I correct, my voice strangled, despite the sarcasm dripping from it, "I'm tickled pink you decided today was the day to drown me. Really, I am."

"Tickled pink," he wraps his tongue around the unfamiliar phrase; I doubt he's ever used the word 'pink' in his life, "Zis sarcasm means you are mad, non? So I am right."

Satisfied, he sits back on his heels, still supporting my head with one arm. His bicep feels like it's made from stone.

This really isn't fair. He's not supposed to understand it when I use sarcasm. It's the one thing he doesn't understand; and from him I don't understand anything at all. How am I supposed to get the upper hand?

It's not like I have a nifty foreign language I can suddenly launch into. My French sucks ass.

I cough; long, wracking, dry coughs that make my throat hurt. You would think all the water I just swallowed would help assuage the pain, but no. That would require fate to like me, which I think I can safely say; _it does not_. If fate felt any pity for me at all, it never would have allowed me to meet Christophe DeLorne. On the other hand, as Christophe likes to say, 'fate iz a capricious beetch', so I don't take it too personally.

"'ave you decided to tell me what I need to know?"

"Fuck you," I spit. He doesn't even bother dodging. I watch my saliva hit his skin with a sort of fascinated horror. I expect him to retaliate. To hold my head back under the water of the brook. Instead hurt passes over his face, a lightning flash. If I didn't have a trained eye, I would never have caught it.

Great. I feel guilt for spitting on the man who has been trying to kill me for the last hour. Or at least torture information out of me. I don't doubt Christophe will kill me if he needs to, oh no, I've gotten over that delusion. However, I think that he might regret having to do so.

That's enough, in my mind. That's love.

Ain't it grand?

"You are mad," he sighs, not bothering to wipe his cheek, "You spit like a wildcat."

He's the wildcat, the lion. Those fierce eyes are trained on my face, and even now, his gaze heats me from within. My shivering lessens.

"Look. I'm not going to tell you anything. You know it. I know it. Can you just kill me and get it over with?"

"Kill you? Why would I kill you?" he looks puzzled, and I can't fathom why.

"Because that's what you do. You're 'Ze Mole'," I say, imitating his once thick accent.

"But you," he pauses, blinks, "You are Gregory."

"That is my name," I reply, not really getting it.

He shakes his head at my supposed idiocy. I hate him for it. He's always been the only one who can ever make me feel like a complete ignoramus, which is ridiculous if you consider my IQ is considerably higher than his. Possibly double it.

"'ow about we start at ze beginning, oui? Where deed you get ze guns?"

"I already told you. I'm not at liberty to say."

"It pains me to 'ave to 'urt you more."

"I'm sure."

He rolls his eyes, "You always must be stubborn. It's not an attractive trait, you do know zis?"

"Yes, because your attempts to introduce me to the silt formations of streams is very attractive."

"What iz zis silt?" he asks, confused. I watch him roll his tongue over the word. I sigh. My lover. My enemy. He's a moron.

"Don't worry about it," I groan, "I'm not telling you where I got the guns."

He stares at me for a long time. Then he says, "We 'ave reached an impasse, zen."

"What impasse?"

"I won't kill you, and you won't tell me what I need to know."

I still don't believe he won't kill me. Love's sadism is true and absolute.

He traces a finger along my jaw line. I know these fingers better than I know my own. I lean into the touch. He pulls away, only to smack me, hard. I feel my teeth grind together, the delicate bones in my cheek caving inward. He has the strength of a gorilla. I don't think he knows how to pull his punches, not even for me.

I find myself half submerged in snow. My body's so cold that I can barely feel it anymore. The moon is bright overhead, a face formed in the nooks and crannies of its craters. The face looks like its laughing at me.

"Gregory," he intones, warning me that another assault will come.

I ply myself up out of the snow, my clothes sticking to me like a second skin.

"Why would you want to be involved in something like zis anyway?" he demands with a quizzical expression, "You don't like war."

"That's the point, man," I choke out, "I'm going to stop it."

"Ze war?" he scoffs, raking a rough hand through his thick, spiky brown hair, "Impossible."

His dog tags dangle in front of me, the moonlight glinting off them like the hard edge of knife. I reach out, entangling my fingers in them. He glances down surprised as I pull his face close.

"Not the war. I don't care about stopping the war," I say, listening to his breath hitch in his throat, "I care about stopping you."

"Zis is…not realistic," he mutters, looking away, "Why would you need to stop me?"

"Realistic? Fuck that. They're going to murder you, Christophe."

He frowns at me, his lips pulling away from his gums to reveal nicotine stained teeth.

"Zat is not true."

"Oh, so I'm lying now?" I release my hold on his dog tags, falling back into the snow. I'm half blinded by the brightness of the moon, the stars.

He doesn't say anything, so I groan, "I took the bloody guns because they were going to use them to kill you on your next mission. It was stupid; I know they can get more at any time. It's the fucking government, after all."

He just watches me.

"You know what? Don't believe me. Do what you have to do."

He frowns at me. One finger traces my lips, and all I can smell is stale cigarettes. I can see the dirt so deeply ingrained in his nail bed than even an entire team of manicurists couldn't extract it. Lord, I'm such a pansy. Father always warned me that moving to America would make a queer out of me, and damned if he wasn't right. That's why I'm lying, bloodied in the snow, thinking about a French assassin's nail beds. My lips feel wet, and I dart my tongue out over them. Bastard. He smeared blood across them. Probably my own. I don't even want to think about how many cuts he's made on my body. How many scars I'll have to map every place he's touched.

I lick my lips again. The salty, metallic taste burns on my tongue.

Christophe notices. He puts a finger to his lips, and in the barely-there illumination of the moon I can make out the hint of red on his knuckle before he sucks the whole thing into his mouth like some sort of lollipop. The flavor of blood does more for him than it ever can for me. His eyes flicker shut for a moment, in something sickly akin to ecstasy.

"I really hate you," I murmur, even though I know it's a lie, and he knows it's one too.

"Self-deceit iz not good for you," he observes, withdrawing his finger from his mouth and pretending he hadn't looked absolutely sinful doing so.

"How do you know its self-deceit? What if I'm finally telling the truth for the first time in ages?"

He leans down, peering closely at my face, "Because, if zat were true, you would not be trying to save me from zis imaginary 'azard."

"It's not imaginary," I stress the last word, but I've given up on arguing. I'm sore and cold, and all I want is to be free. Free from him, free from loving him, and free from this terrible idealism that makes it so that even if I ran as far as I could, I'd never really be free in the first place. He chuckles, maybe because he knows. Maybe he can read my thoughts. Maybe that's why he likes to play this game of cat and mouse, 'round and 'round forever and again. Because he knows he'll always win. He must. It's the only way to explain his fetish for causing me so much heartache without ever worrying that I'll walk away.

"What do you want, zen? Do you want me to quit my job? Run away wiz you? Iz that 'ow you want to spend ze rest of your life? Fleeing, wiz a mercenary?"

"I was a mercenary too," I inform him, like he doesn't know. Like that isn't how we got into that situation in the first place.

"You?" he scoffs, "You were soft. You were too 'onest, too naïve."

"I was the only person who could ever beat you," I say, even though it comes out as a whisper.

He nods, "Oui. Zis iz true. But only because I let you."

I stare at him, "Why would you do that?"

I know the answer. So he could play with me. So he could train me to be his. He likes nothing more than breaking his toys. It's the only way he knows how to show his affection for them. He twists them and bends them and disfigures them until the day they look exactly like him.

"I adore you," he frowns, "I always 'ave. You know zis."

Of course. And it all goes back to what I said. Being loved by this man, by this creature, by Christophe DeLorne…it's not gentle. It's not kind. It's being cherished by something as fierce and primal as a lion. It's being caught up in a whirlwind so high that your feet never touchdown again. And maybe he loving him does a little too tame the beast within, but really it's more like being caged myself, so why bother?

Because I'm a masochist. Because I'm a sadist. Because I'm in love.

"So the question arises," I mutter softly, "What do we do?"

He grins at that, the feral grin I'm used to seeing him wear before he sticks a bullet in someone's head, "We beat ze odds."

"You're going to evade death?"

I watch him shrug, casual, "I always do."

Not this time.

* * *

A/N: Confused yet? This is more like a prologue than an actual chapter. A very long prologue. I wasn't going to post it, but then I posted the first chapter of another fic, which made my fic count thirty four, and I'm not a big fan of even numbers. I'm strange, I know. Please review and tell me how much my characterizations suck! Or not! I hope not, but I'm counting on the former.


	2. The More I See The Less I Know

**Starstruck**

_Chapter Two: The More I See The Less I Know_

By: Jondy Macmillan

A/N: Oh dear. So everyone wanted a continuation of that first chapter, and I'm afraid you're going to have to wait for it. It was kind of a really long prologue, although I hate calling things prologues. It feels so pretentious, somehow. Anyway, I wanted to try my hand at a 'how Christophe met Gregory and vice versa' fic, and this is what I came up with. The first chapter will be continued in the last few chapters, and I hope you're all not terribly disappointed you have to wait, and will continue reading!

* * *

There was a time, once, when I didn't know Christophe.

My father has been a part of the military since long before I began forming memories. A lieutenant-commander, which as I understand it is a decent officer's rank; although not nearly as impressive as a higher pay grade might be, he's been an integral part of my life. Mostly an integral part of it going to shit.

It's mostly his fault that I ended up in the situation I'm in today. In love and royally screwed, I mean.

Somewhere in the dark ages, my dad was stationed in the UK before beginning a tour in the Gulf. While there, he got my mum to spread her legs like a low class hooker, and I'm pretty much the result. I don't begrudge mum her hour of fun, but many are the days I wish she hadn't decided to track my father down. Sure, it all ended well for her. She got the dream; the house, the picket fence, the dog, and the kid. Dad was nothing if not an honorable fellow.

Good for mum, like I said. Horrid for me.

I've had to deal with the repercussions of my conceiving all my young life. It wasn't bad at first. Ages one, two, and three, I expected moving from house to house was a part of daily life. Around age four I got suspicious, and by the time I turned five, I'd figured it all out. My parents denied me a normal life. They moved me from base to base without ever giving me a say in whether I actually wanted to be a Navy Brat.

I had no constants. There were the less than exemplary schools I attended, which never quite seemed to be able to keep up with my fluxuating curriculum. I must have relearned my multiplication tables at least five times. My mother tried to educate me on the finer points in life; literature and etiquette and things you don't learn at tables full of men sporting flattops and drinking pitchers full of Bud every night. Most nights she'd wrangle me into eating at home with supplemental dinner table lessons while dad visited the local eateries; cafeterias fancied up or down, but never quite masking the broods of squids, jarheads, flyboys, and well-muscled soldiers occupying them. He wouldn't come back well after oh dark hundred, and he'd always be fully sloshed.

Sometimes he'd tell me stories when he was like that. Stories about his time in tomcats, flying side by side with falcons in their bulky, inefficient bombers. Now son, he'd say, they're phasing us out. It didn't matter for him anyway. His eyes were shot to hell, and no one wanted a Navy pilot with crap vision.

He has a dirty mouth, one my mum tried impossibly hard to censor, but it never seemed to stop him. It made him friends, I suppose. Cussing in the military is some kind of pastime, and my dad's a master. In fact, if I were going to pinpoint how I met him, the guy that fucked my life every which way, that fateful day when I was six; I'd say it occurred because of my dad's foul language. Living on a military base isn't always a social death sentence. And just because you happen to be a 'brat' doesn't mean you band together with your neighbors in a desperate attempt at solidarity. I barely knew most of my neighbors' names, and few of them had children around my age. Most of the time I played by myself, except when an older kid would take pity on me and decide to do a day's charity work.

My dad was on leave that particular day. It was autumn, if I recall correctly, but it didn't feel much different from summer or winter. We were in a particularly sunny area of Southern California, where the seasons often seemed frozen in time. It was a nice change from Dad's previous stint in Kansas, or the aggravating months before that where the weather was fine but I couldn't speak to a soul since I didn't understand Korean.

At any rate, dad was home, drinking on our front porch. Our house was remarkably identical to the all the other houses on the street, which happened when you lived on a base. Uniformity was the name of the game.

He was drinking, which wasn't a particularly advisable thing. Even on leave, the military expected my dad to be able to handle whatever they threw at him. If he'd been at the local pub, it would've been perfectly acceptable, but alone on his porch in broad daylight was an offense, however questionable. It became a question of morals when he spotted a car driving by, towing a U-Haul and sporting a United States Marine Corps sticker.

"Here come the devil-dogs," he muttered, "Polluting our street."

I glanced up at him warily. Dad had no problem with Marines, per se, but as an older sailor, he had a deeply instilled rivalry that was once supported, even encouraged, by the old regime. At that point the government had only recently begun it's 'let's all work together for a brighter tomorrow' campaign, and my father was having trouble adjusting. So basically, he thought it fitting to yell obscenities off the porch towards the car. Which, it being a breezy, comfortably cool day outside, proved to be a blunder. The angry driver of the car opened his door, steaming mad. He bounded up onto our porch, and here, it's a testament to my father's prowess, had a spitting curse-word showdown that would have put most of the other squids on the street to shame.

Once more, my dad reigned victorious. Not only that, but he'd made a new friend. The Marine parked his U-Haul in the driveway three houses down and came right back over. With his wife and son.

The man, Mr. DeLorne, I liked. He was tall, thin, but with the amount of muscle one expected from a military man. The woman, Mrs. DeLorne, I didn't. She was a sallow faced shrew. Despite all my mother's attempts to entice her into a conversation, she steadfastly refused, clutching the cross that dangled around her neck. Eventually I learned it wasn't because she was unfriendly that she acted so, although in time she would grow to be the woman I'd judged and loathed. No, at that point, she had trouble understanding English, being fresh off the boat from France, much like my mother once upon a time.

Then there was the boy.

I'll never forget him, standing there, scrawny and unnaturally tall for a six year old. His eyes were leonine, and his hair was short, but stuck up everywhere, like he'd recently been on the receiving end of an impromptu crew cut gone awry. He was the fiercest little boy I'd ever seen.

I was instantly infatuated.

"Son," my dad placed a hand on my shoulder, "This is Christophe DeLorne."

"Christophe," I tasted the name, rolling it on my tongue. Decisively, I held out a hand, like mum had taught me to, "I'm Gregory."

He glared balefully at me. I'd never met someone so caustic before. It was fascinating; a break from the constant boredom of normalcy that I once took for granted.

"I reckon my son's not takin' to yers," Mr. DeLorne drawled, his voice honey sweet and Southern as could be. The realization that the DeLorne's were French hadn't quite sunk in, not having heard Christophe or his mother speak yet. The reality of his father's Baptist heritage and French ancestry would long confound me until much, much later.

"Boy's a spitfire," my dad replied easily, taking a swig of beer. He offered one to Mr. DeLorne, who accepted with a 'don't mind if I do'.

"Daddy," I tugged on his shirt, "Why is he being mean?"

"Well I don't quite know," my dad replied with a smirk, "Why don't you ask him?"

I should have known then by the mischievous glint in my father's eye what was going to happen.

I took a tentative step towards Christophe, raising my hands in the air. I recall thinking to myself that perhaps this boy wasn't belligerent; he was just hard of hearing. At such a young age, common sense hadn't been beaten into my head yet, and what I did next seemed like the optimal solution. I stepped up to Christophe and put my lips to his ear. He regarded me out of the corner of his eye with a piercing, warning look.

"I said hel-lo!" I yelled, straight into his eardrum, "My NAME is GREGORY!"

It wasn't the brightest idea on my part, I'll admit.

Next thing I knew, I had Christophe's tiny fist in my face.

No stranger to throwing down, as my father had taught me that defending myself was always key, I retaliated. I punched him in the gut, the ribcage, and all the places that made my mother shriek and squeak in horror. Even Mrs. DeLorne was yelling in heavily accented English, and the only words that I could make out were 'Non', 'Stop', and 'Please'.

Meanwhile, our fathers were doing something entirely different.

"I'll wager my son is going to kick your son's ass."

"You're on, Frenchie," my dad rejoined. He was delighted to hear Mrs. DeLorne's accent, I think.

I pinned Christophe down with my body, wailing on his face with my hands and elbows. He jabbed me with his knee, squashing my vital points and assuring he had the upper hand in our grappling. I struggled to regain my advantage, lashing out with everything my six year old self had.

In the end, it was declared a tie. Our mother's pulled us kicking and screaming, apart.

That was how I met him. That was how our relationship started. With violence. Little did I know one day it would end the same way.

I never got to say, thanks a whole fucking lot, Dad.

* * *

A/N: Yes. Mr. DeLorne is a hick- I acknowledge the surname is French, and will eventually get to him having French ancestry and the schematics of how he met the decidedly French Missus. Just not yet. There will be two or three more chapters detailing the years leading up to Gregory's fifteenth/sixteenth, which is when the romance that leads to the beating to a bloody pulp begins. Necessary back story, you could call it. Anyhow, I apologize for the brevity of this chapter- the next few should be a bit longer.


	3. Make You Fall Real Hard In Love

**Starstruck**

_Chapter Three: Make You Fall Real Hard In Love_

By: Jondy Macmillan

* * *

My family moved from California not long after I met Christophe. Frankly, I was relieved. I didn't know what to do when my father forced us to spend time together; whether to be apologetic and friendly or to fake a stiff upper lip and act like I was proud of the fact my mum had called me a ruffian in the wake of our fight.

He was nothing but angry, sullen, and silent for the whole of our meetings, and well…I was six. I wanted sunshine and smiles and hugs from my mum. We weren't exactly compatible.

So yes, the move was a relief, for a little while. It was a new place, new friends to make, new lies to tell. Ah, that last bit.

Somehow I'd gotten it into my head that being the son of a sailor man wasn't all it was cracked up to be. I decided I'd be infinitely more interesting to my new schoolmates if they thought perhaps I was descended from a foreign dignitary. Of course, the other six year olds had no clue what a dignitary was, so I opted for the next best thing.

I became Prince Gregory.

For a little while.

We shifted from town to town so quickly in those years that no one had time to catch me in a lie. My mum didn't put it to rights; she knew, but she figured it was something I'd get bored of, like every other game of make-believe. I was close to the point of giving up the whole charade, actually, when I got called out.

It went down like this; I walked into class one morning, fully intent on being surrounded by a gaggle of girls during recess who would beg me to regale them with tales of princesses and unicorns and even the occasional dragon when my world shattered. There, standing in a pair of muddy jeans and a stained white t-shirt, looking like he'd just run through a tornado, was Christophe.

I just knew he was going to ruin everything. From across the classroom, he met my eyes. Only a flicker, only for a second. It bothered me that he wasn't acknowledging my presence, that his face stayed expressionless. I was so scared, in a way I'd only ever been when I'd done something horrid, like break my mother's favorite vase or track mud all over the white carpets; but I was going to use my time wisely. I spent my entire math lesson agonizing over what spin I could give my story, how I could prove my word over Christophe's when he inevitably spilled the beans to everybody. I would have spent all of my English lessons doing the same, had a knock not sounded off at our door.

One of the older kids, a fifth grader, was standing there in that awkward-but-cooler-than-thou way older kids always had. Hands shoved in their pockets in deference to the adults, but their chin held a little higher than all us first graders could ever manage. Fifth graders were worldly, in all the ways we wanted to be.

This one bowed his head a little, but still managed to look snotty and stuck up. When he told the teacher that I was wanted in the principal's office, his eyes were trained straight on me.

My stomach turned. This was all Christophe's fault. It had to be. I'd never once in my life been made to see the principal, and now suddenly I was being corralled in there like some kind of delinquent. The fifth grader walked me there, an executioner at my heels. He kicked the backs of my shoes vindictively, and I could feel tears welling in my eyes.

What if they'd found _out_? It was just a stupid lie. It wasn't hurting anyone. Not really.

So why was guilt pooling in my stomach?

I knew I'd done something wrong, and maybe that's why my face burned red the moment I finally came to stand before our principal.

She was kind. She dismissed the haughty fifth grader and knelt down on one knee to meet my eyes. I had trouble meeting hers in return as she earnestly explained that lying came in conflict with the school's zero tolerance policy because it could lead to larger, more dangerous lies.

I may have cried a little; I wasn't used to being on the bad side of authority.

By the time I'd gotten my slap-on-the-wrist warning and was sent out to recess, my dad's voice was running on repeat in my head.

"Cowboy up, son."

That's what he'd say when I'd fall and scrape my knee, and wanted nothing more than somebody to kiss my boo boos away.

"Cowboy up, son," he'd say, instead of kissing my wounds. He'd ruffle my hair and smile and whirl me around in his arms until I was smiling too, and had completely forgotten that I wanted something as mushy and gooey as a stupid kiss.

Except now, instead of smiling, I was pissed. Well, as pissed as a six year old can be. I passed the fifth grader in the hallway and he smirked, like I was a bug he was deciding to let live, just this once.

I marched out onto the field where we had recess. Populated by a sandbox, a swing set, and my entire first grade class; it looked like a battlefield to me. Christophe was sitting beneath the lone tree at the west corner of the sandbox. His pale arms sticking out of his t-shirt looked sallow and malnourished, and for a second I wanted to give him my lunch instead of trying to make sure he could never eat solid food again.

The second passed.

Just before I reached him, a group of girls I knew pretty well walked by. They cast me pitying looks. The principal had explained that she wouldn't call out my lie. It was up to me to build integrity and all that. So I knew what those looks meant; Christophe hadn't just told the teachers that I wasn't who I claimed to be. He'd told everybody.

My vision went red.

The next thing I knew, I was standing over Christophe, chest heaving, knuckles covered in blood that must have come from his face judging by the amount flowing free from his nose. He was glaring up at me with murder in his eyes. Then he lunged at me. It was a repeat of the day we'd met with no chaperones to step in and tear us apart.

Christophe tackled me to the ground, kicking his foot into my gut and shoving his elbow into my face, in the hollows of my eyelids so that I could barely see to fight back. I clawed at his hair and his face, my fingers slick from coming in contact with his bloody nose. Eventually I found a foothold and managed to flip us over, so that he writhed beneath me, fists and feet flying like a hissing, spitting cat. I punched him and punched him and punched him 'til I wasn't really aiming anymore, just trying to make him hurt, because he'd hurt me.

It all lasted a minute, maybe. Except when a teacher pulled the two of us apart, I was exhausted, as though I'd been pummeling him for hours. He regarded me warily out of the corner of his fresh black eye. It made me feel like I was mentally unsound and might attack at any moment.

We were taken to see the principal. It was my second trip that day, and this time, there was no kneeling down to my level or gentle voice. She called in our parents with brisk professionalism, and half an hour later, the two of us were being dragged out of school to the local McDonald's.

Why McDonald's, you ask?

Well, the 'rents wanted to discuss us. Christophe's dad and mine were reasonable about the whole thing; neither was fussed about something as teensy as a schoolyard fight.

Mum and Mrs. DeLorne weren't having any of it.

Christophe and I sat on a bench away from them, both watching with sullen intensity. At first, when I saw the conversation slowly going in Mrs. DeLorne's favor, I thought it was a good thing. Perhaps we were to be moving again?

The thought gave me cool relief.

Until they called us over, that is. Our parents sat us down and explained that we'd been displaying increasing amounts of unacceptable behavior. To Christophe it seemed like the speech was old news. His dad delivered it in a slow drawl that seemed steady and familiar. My father stumbled over the words and kept glancing at mum in askance. 'Do I really have to say this?' his eyes demanded.

By the time they were done, all I could do was sputter in a meek voice, "Y-you're sending us away?"

Christophe just grinned; more of a fierce baring of his teeth than an expression of happiness. Like a dog showing some fang.

Mum sipped on her soda straw with a grimace, as though she couldn't find the words to explain what was happening. Finally she withdrew, licked her lips, and murmured, "Gregory, honey. It's only for a few months."

"Yardale is a fine school, son," my father said with absolutely no conviction at all. He didn't want to ship me off to boarding school. I could see it in his expression.

It was Mrs. DeLorne, I knew, who had planted this seed. She wanted to be rid of her wretch of a son, Christophe, and somehow had succeeded in luring my parents into allying with her. Once she'd planted the seed of doubt that I might be trouble, my mum had jumped on board, hoping to stave off the problem before it grew.

Dad was a sailor, a tried and true squid, and he wouldn't- couldn't say no to a curriculum that was structured with uniformity, discipline, and teamwork. It would've been like saying no to the mores of the Navy. Mr. DeLorne too.

That was the problem with growing up as a military brat. I learned quick that my father had the capacity to be a good bit more childish than I ever could hope to be. At the same time I was boxed in with the expectation that I could submit to the same strict regimen that he'd been forced through in basic training. I was supposed to take all of the blows with less of a childhood. It didn't seem fair.

It wasn't fair.

"Mum, no, mum, please!" my voice got shrill as I tugged to her hem, slipped under the table and clung to her knee. She glanced away, ashamed of me. It was the first time I'd really comprehended it was possible for my mother to look at me with anything but love and pride. I'd disappointed her before, but never on this level. Never to the degree that she'd wanted to be rid of me.

"Dad," I glanced up at him, knowing my cause was already lost.

At the time, Christophe's silence hadn't struck me at odd. I'd thought it was just a peculiar character trait of his; maybe even residual guilt for ratting me out.

It never occurred to me that maybe the word 'Yardale' had left him paralyzed.

With fear.

* * *

A/N: Why hello, there. Long time, no see. I haven't forgotten about this story, but thank you for the reviews that ended up convincing me to post sooner rather than later. I'd missed these two. I regret that I'm again posting a rather short chapter, but I really do think the next few will be longer. And hey- Yardale! That should be exciting. Maybe Christophe might even get -gaspshockawe- dialogue! Please review!


	4. Cause No One Comes For Free

**Starstruck**

_Chapter Four: 'Cause No One Comes For Free_

By: Jondy Macmillan

* * *

From the outside, Yardale looked nice enough. Freshly trimmed lawns of green spanned the area between the gates and the main office. A hodgepodge assortment of brick buildings stood off in the distance, and even farther back I could see the beginnings of a forest. The entire campus was huge, bigger than any school I'd ever attended before, and surrounded by wrought iron gates.

When my dad pulled up in front of the headmaster's office, I let out a breath I hadn't known I was holding. For the past few weeks I hadn't been able to shake the fear I'd seen in Christophe's eyes. I'd imagined all manner of hellish scenarios, but my imagination was calmed by the unassuming façade of the school.

"I'll take you inside, get you sorted," my dad clapped a hand on my shoulder. I wanted to cling to that hand, to beg him not to leave me at this place, but I was fully aware that I'd only be shaming myself. Dad wouldn't see the display of weakness as endearing now that his decision was made. I was a criminal, one in need of structure.

Never mind the fact that my most criminal act had been giving Christophe a bloody nose that he absolutely deserved.

The headmaster was an _old_ man, with wrinkles and creases that must have set in around the dark ages and watery blue eyes that didn't seem to see anything at all. My father spoke to him with hushed respect, like he was greeting an ancient warhorse who'd been put to pasture. I could tell the man appreciated my father's kowtowing, but the few glances he spared for me were less than heartening. I occupied myself with examining his multiple diplomas lining the beige walls and fervently hoped my classes at Yardale required limited contact with this man.

Of course I didn't know what the classes would require, but I'd envisioned lovely, tranquil young ladies with blushing cheeks, much like the women who'd taught me for most of my youth. I was almost seven, and I hadn't yet had a bad experience with an educator.

That was soon to change.

After my father had concluded his business with nary a hug for me in sight, I was left alone with the dreadful old man who was ever so slightly more nightmarish now that the comfort I'd leeched from my father had vanished. The headmaster looked me up and down, like I was a particularly strange sight, like he'd never glimpsed a little boy before.

Finally he croaked out that someone would show me to my dorm room.

Which was much, much worse than I'd expected. Spartan in nature, the only thing I'd ever seen barer than the room was a prison cell in Alcatraz. We'd taken a field trip there when I lived in San Francisco for a brief time, and the deserted prison was less desolate than a Yardale dorm room.

The second thing I noticed was that aside from the total lack of paint or furniture other than cots was that there were two. Cots, I mean.

"Your roommate's," the guide murmured, noting my confusion. Then, as if that had been introduction enough to my new way of life, he left me alone.

I threw my tiny hold-all onto the nearest cot and collapsed on top of it. I wanted nothing more than to throw a hissy fit, but what good would it be with no one around to hear it?

That's when I felt the hairs on the back of my neck prickle. It was a feeling I was barely used to getting, usually provoked by girls staring and giggling. Only here, there were no girls watching me with kewpie lashes and laughing mouths. I sat up, dangling my feet off the end of my cot to meet a pair of leonine eyes.

"You," I accused, jumping to the floor. Christophe moved from where he'd been hiding in the shambles of a closet; really, it was just a metal locker.

"I didn't want ze monitor to find me," he explained, even though I couldn't meet his gaze without seeing red. He was the one who'd destroyed my entire life. He was the reason my parents had abandoned me. I'd never known hatred before, but I felt the first spark of it stirring inside my chest.

"It's your fault I'm here!" I burst, restraining myself from full-on tackling him to the ground and pummeling his face in. I didn't want to be an animal, like my mum said.

I wanted to be good, so she'd love me again.

"Non. It is not my fault. Our muzzers," Christophe muttered, "Zey are trophy wives. Zey want to get back to being beautiful, childless."

"Take that back! My mum wants me with her!"

"Is zat so? Zen why aren't you?" Christophe's tiny mouth pursed with disdain when I didn't give him the satisfaction of an answer. He continued, "No one asked you to turn violent."

"I didn't 'turn violent'. You humiliated me. That was payback," I spat.

"Payback for what, exactly? I'll 'ave you know I did no'zing wrong."

"You told everyone I lied!"

"Non. I did no such zing. Your moronic lies are none of my business, Gregory."

The way he said my name irked me, for reasons I couldn't identify. Greg-go-ry. Not Greg-ry, like all the Americans.

"Fine. If you didn't tell, who did?"

"My best guess would be someone oz'er zan me," he retorted impetuously, chestnut hair falling into his eyes.

"You promise it wasn't you?" I demanded, incredulous, because of course it had to have been him, "Swear?"

Meeting my eyes evenly, Christophe held up his hand and replied, "Pinky promise."

I watched him, suspicious. Up until that point, he'd given me nothing but grief. Still, at six-but-almost-seven, a pinky promise was like law. He couldn't be lying if he was willing to offer that kind of vow. I linked my finger around his bony one.

"Fine," I crossed my arms when we were done, trying to keep all my body parts far away from him. Pinky promises didn't mean he suddenly had my trust, or anything, "Um…so what's wrong with this place?"

"Wrong?" Christophe's eyes narrowed, and if he'd been a dog, his ears would have flattened against his head.

"You don't like it here," I stated bluntly.

"…yeah. I don't like it 'ere," he caved, slumping down on one of the cots, "It's not a good place."

"Why?"

"Zey will run you ragged. Zey will beat you if you do some'zing wrong. Zey will make you 'urt."

"I don't believe you. My parents wouldn't have sent me here if that was true," I gulped back my terror, convinced he was attempting to trick me again.

But he wasn't joking. With all seriousness, he said, "It is, and zey did, but believe what you like."

"I will," I crossed my arms even more tightly, like if I squeezed hard enough then maybe it'd stop me from shivering. Even if I didn't really believe him, Christophe's words had gotten to me.

Imagine how I felt when I found out they were true.

* * *

It happened the next day. I'd harbored my suspicions later that night, when Christophe had escorted me to the mess hall, which was the quietest cafeteria I'd ever seen. The kids inside, from the ones younger than I was to the oldest of the teenagers were sullen and tight lipped. I tried to greet a few, but they refused to even meet my eyes. I wasn't sure if they were unfriendly or if the behavior was enforced, and it made me nervous. Some of them darted looks at my companion, throwing him pained glances, like they'd met him before and felt sorry that they were seeing him again.

I ended up eating what passed as food next to Christophe, who I couldn't get a single word out of, before retiring to bed in silence.

The following morning when I woke, Christophe had already evacuated our room. I donned the uniform they'd left me; khaki slacks and a black polo that fit too snugly, along with a pair of boots that I barely got laced. I'd only just begun wearing shoes without Velcro, and the complicated knots my mother had always tied for me were beyond my skill set.

I ended up weaving the laces in and out of the eyeholes until I thought maybe they'd stay.

It was hard, finding the classroom. Despite the huge campus, Yardale's actual elementary school was a small place connected to the dorms. Even so, on my first real day there, it seemed labyrinthine in nature. I must have stumbled into three different classrooms full of mean-faced students before I found one with kids who looked about my age, one with Christophe seated in the back row.

"S-sorry," I trembled a little, nervous as could be, "I, um, got lost."

The teacher was standard military issue; that is to say, he had no recognizable features at all. In a crowd, he would stand out because of his height and musculature, but had that crowd been composed of Marines, well, he would have blended from his flat top crew cut to his polished black boots. Also, he didn't appear to be all that sympathetic to my plight. Instead of telling me it was okay, he peered down his nose at my quivering form and grunted, "You'll make it up later."

I had no idea what that meant.

It sounded like a threat.

When I went to find a desk to sit at, there were only two empty. One was by Christophe. I started toward it and he glared at me, so intensely that I did a full reverse and chose the other, near the front of the classroom.

I'd barely been sitting for two seconds when the teacher began lecturing on the history of something we'd never quite covered in any of my classes; war. I was halfway through first grade, well before my education on the American Revolution and the Civil War was set to begin.

Most kids my age weren't even all that sure what 'war' was, except for how it related to their GI Joe figurines.

And he wasn't even discussing the so called 'great' battles of our nation. No, he was talking about a civil revolt in a country I hadn't even heard of.

He was teaching a group of six year olds about the military strategy used to suppress what was destined to become a violent coup, and why that strategy failed. In retrospect, it was gruesome, and even then I knew this wasn't the kind of thing a child learns when they've barely passed addition and subtraction.

On the other hand, my father had always been one for war stories, and this- well, it was interesting.

Not everyone thought so. At the end of the lecture, the teacher dove upon those few poor, unsuspecting students who'd found the shapes of clouds and their own imaginations more enlightening than his monotone voice with a fervor more suited to a rabid jungle cat.

He didn't just ask them questions about the subject matter; he interrogated them.

And when they got it wrong, he announced we were going outside.

I didn't understand why walking out into the bright, cheerful daylight would be construed as a punishment. Even when I saw the gargantuan obstacle course set in the woods behind the school, I wasn't concerned. I'd always been good at PE, even though I'd never partaken in any team sports.

My family never stuck around in one place long enough for joining a team to be worth it.

The course resembled what I'd seen my dad train on; climbing walls and nets to crawl beneath, hurdles and monkey bars, but all on a smaller scale. In the distance, toward the other side of the school, I could see an adult sized version. Both courses bordered the woods that had looked peaceful from the entrance of the school but now seemed near impenetrable and filled with darkness.

"Get going!" the teacher barked, spittle flying with each word. He was like a mad dog, right down to his somewhat droopy jowls and bared fangs.

The other kids hung back a little, fearful; even Christophe, who I'd always thought of as even more athletic than me because our inch or two height difference.

I liked to think of myself as brave, as daring, even though I wasn't. I was just stupid, and I thought that there was no risk. I thought it was a normal obstacle course, all metal and rope and nothing more. So I dutifully climbed up the ladder to the monkey bars, aware of the eyes boring into me and uneasy shuffling of my peers.

Even though it was the pint size version of what my father had endured, once I was dangling from my hands the bars seemed high as skyscrapers. My breath left my body in a whoosh, and I had to focus, to concentrate with all my might to keep from falling, even as my palms got clammy, sweat slicking the metal.

Behind me, I heard another student climbing the ladder, felt the skeletal frame of the bars quake with his weight. I forged onward, swinging from hand to hand until I was right in the middle, and my fingers closed around something pointed and sharp.

Immediately I let go, falling hard to the ground, sprawled out on my back. The impact jolted up my spine, and I cried out, surprised. My palm was welling with blood, and when I looked up I could see Christophe dangling above and peering down at me, avoiding the jagged metal. Which now that I looked closely, I could tell ringed many of the bars.

It was inhuman. It was sick. But back then, all I could think of was that I'd been hurt _on purpose_.

I began to cry, and the teacher smirked, taking horrific pleasure in my pain. He commanded, "Do it again."

When I didn't stand, only whimpered and began to sob in earnest, he growled, "Do it again. Make it across."

Christophe, uninjured, had already climbed down the ladder on the opposite end and was about to enter another part of the course. But he wasn't really moving toward the hurdles; he was staring straight at me, pitying.

"Do. It. Again," the teacher ordered, face turning red with the effort of not hurtling at me in some kind of berserker rage. I was frightened of him, in a way I'd never been of any adult, "Do. It. _Again._"

I wouldn't. I couldn't. My palm ached, blood running down my wrist now. The last time I'd bled so much was when I'd fallen off my skateboard the year before and badly skinned my knee. My father had carried me home on his shoulders, and my mother had kissed my wounds 'til the ache stopped mattering.

My father and mother weren't there now. They'd left me in Yardale, in the most horrible place in the world. It was hell, like Christophe had said. I didn't know much about hell, other than what I'd only just begun learning in bits and pieces at Sunday School, but I couldn't imagine a place worse than this.

One of the kids, smaller and scrawnier even than I was laughed, his eyes mean, "Do it again!"

He kicked me in the side, his boot digging into my abdomen. It was brutal, the look in his eyes. I'd never had anyone look at me that way. I'd never experienced such cruelty.

Another boy joined in. Then another.

I folded over, clutching at my belly, trying to fend off their kicks with my hands.

It could have been worse. The kids pounding their frustration into me were weak, and I could tell. They weren't athletes; they were the kids who would get picked on in any other school. The nerds with their glasses and the tiny, pale loners. They worked off their frustration, on me.

The strong ones, the ones who could really hurt, who were bigger and broader and taller than the rest stood off to the side, or continued down the obstacle course, content to pretend I wasn't being beaten into the dust.

If _they'd _been kicking me, I'm certain I would have cracked a rib. But they didn't, not wanting to partake in the wicked assault, but not doing anything to stop it, either.

Christophe was one of them. At some point, my eyes locked on his, fierce and golden, and shame-ridden. He made no move to help me, but I could tell he didn't like what was happening. I think it was fear that stopped him from moving, from extending a hand.

At least, I like to think it was now. Back then, all I could do was scream, and my only thoughts involved making it all stop.

Eventually the teacher lazily whistled and called off his dogs with a sharp bark, "Enough!"

When he was sure he'd gotten everyone's attention, he announced, "Get back to the course."

The kids who'd been beating me obediently climbed up the ladder, crossed the bars, and began the hurdles. I was still crippled with pain, staring at Christophe.

The teacher snarled, "Get your ass up there. I won't ask again."

It was a definitely a threat, and I was very, very scared. But then I felt defiance surge through me. It was a strange feeling, one I'd never experienced. But I wanted to _show him. _I wanted to show everybody that I could be strong. My parents, the teacher- and Christophe too. Even though I'd never been abused like that before, even though my body was a bruise, I scrambled to my knees, and then to my feet. I wiped my bleeding hand on my shirt, actually managing to glare at the teacher, and crossed the monkey bars, although I fell at least three different times from my slippery, crimson hand.

When I'd reached the other end, I began the hurdles. Running was something I was good at, from soccer to tag football to simple cross country. Only, I'd forgotten about my shoes. The first barrier I met lead to me falling, flat on my face. And this time, it took everything I had left to lift myself up. The teacher watched me in disgust and then marched to where the other students were standing, to observe them.

It took me nearly an hour to complete the course. I'd never felt so exhausted in my entire life. I'd fallen, I'd crashed, and I'd possibly twisted one of my wrists. To my great shock, I wasn't the last one to finish; that honor fell to one of the cowards who'd kicked me.

I thought we were done for the day. I thought I could fall back into my bed and curl up in the fetal position and never move again. Mostly, I just wanted to call my mum and cry my eyes out.

"Laps," the teacher announced, obviously displeased, "I want to see all of you at the other end of the woods in less than half an hour."

He stalked off into the foliage. Everyone who'd been audience to my downfall raced off after him.

Everyone except for Christophe. With a critical eye, he watched me limp toward the trees, wincing as my wounds twinged, brushing grass and dirt off my clothes. I must have had tear tracks staining my cheeks, but I glared at him, insolent, "Why didn't you help?"

He shrugged, "I couldn't. I would 'ave gotten punished as well."

I wanted to scream at him, to yell 'so?' so loudly that the whole world would hear it. But I didn't. I couldn't, because if these were the kinds of punishments Yardale meted out, I wouldn't have wished it on anyone, not even Christophe.

"Your laces are untied," he observed.

"I don't know how to do it right," I explained, the sounds of my classmates disappearing into the distance. I wanted to be mortified by the admission, especially since it was to Christophe, but I didn't have any energy left. Right then, he wasn't the enemy. He was just a kid, going through the same torture as me.

He kneeled before me, right there, in the dirt. He began fiddling with my shoes while I watched.

When he was done, I had two perfectly laced boots.

"Zere," he said, satisfied, "Much better."

"I- uh, thank you," I choked out, feeling like a complete bastard for hating him so much up until that moment. My abdomen ached with what felt like a thousand bruises, and I could feel one of my eyes already beginning to swell, but somehow, I felt warm.

"Yeah, yeah," he was embarrassed, and he kicked at the ground and stared at one of the many trees, "We should do ze laps now."

I didn't want to do laps. The forest was dark and terrifying. The teacher and his monstrous students even more so. I wanted to run away from this horrid place, as fast as my tiny legs would carry me.

But with Christophe there, I somehow felt braver.

I braced myself as best I could and breathed, "Okay."

* * *

A/N: This chapter was just- impossible. I'm sorry it took so long to get out, and I hope it's not terribly boring. Please review!


	5. Harder, Faster, Forever After

**Starstruck**

_Chapter Five: Harder, Faster, Forever After_

By: Jondy Macmillan

A/N: Why Starstruck? Well, I named this fic for the song by Lady Gaga. I'm not a huge Gaga fan (Just Dance and Bad Romance and Paparazzi are catchy, I'll admit) but Starstruck is the only song of hers that I just FELL IN LOVE WITH, which might have something to do with it being featured during the lesbian strip club scene on Fringe…but I digress. That's where the title came from. It's a little strange to name a Gregory/Christophe fic after it, but I had to name SOMETHING, and this story got the short straw. It's funny how after I named it though I discovered two more songs- Starstrukk by 3oh3!, which came out as a single last summer very shortly after I'd titled this, and Starstruck by Sterling Knight (Disney Channel) this winter. See I choose popular names, okay?

* * *

My second year at Yardale was no more pleasant than the first. And I say 'pleasant' lightly, because it isn't the kind of adjective that deserves to be associated with that hellhole. The torture I endured made me stronger physically, it's true, but I begged my parents not to make me go back. I told them stories of the horrors I'd seen, of the brutal beatings the teachers administered through student lackeys and the punishments that could involve being made to do obstacle courses for countless hours, all to no avail.

Not only did they not believe me, but even if they had, none of it was illegal. I had no proof that the teachers pitted us against each other than black and blue bruises that could just as easily have been gained from falling out of a tree. The obstacles courses were approved by the Yardale school board, and according to my father, I could easily tough it out. I was a Thorne, after all.

Something had changed in my time away from home that I tried to pinpoint my entire summer vacation. My father no longer told jovial stories about his time at sea, and my mother no longer stooped to kiss my scraped knees- perhaps because I no longer cried about such minor injuries, but it felt like part of a larger problem. There was a subtle tension between my parents that had never been there before, and it left me striving to escape our house more and more often to wander one strange military base after another.

When I finally was sent back to school in the fall, it was almost a relief. Almost.

That fall I was in third grade, and where I should have been learning how to survive in the social paradigm set up by my peers alongside basic maths, I instead found myself discovering how to fence, how to fight, how to make sure that nobody thought I was the weakest kid in class. Because in Yardale, being weak meant being destroyed. I'd seen kids expelled, shipped off, and perhaps the previous year I might have found such an action desirable. Now I knew that when the school sunk its teeth into you, there was no way to leave without having chunks of yourself ripped out. Those kids who'd fled Yardale's gate had been nearly catatonic. I couldn't see them ever functioning with normal, healthy lives. The only way to survive was to _survive_.

So I knew to fall in line my first day back. My uniforms were spotless, my posture was ramrod straight, and I'd studied up on nearly everything I could on the last, fading weeks of summer. Of course it wasn't enough. It was never enough. Our teachers demanded perfection, and I was nothing if not flawed.

My roommate for the year wasn't Christophe. This was both a blessing and curse; I hadn't exactly made many friends the previous year, but as a friend, Christophe left much to be desired. He was sullen, angry, and quite often ignored my existence. Although he showed me small bouts of kindness here and there, for the most part Christophe acted like it was my fault he'd ended up there again in the first place. In retrospect, I suppose it was.

At any rate, I was placed with a boy named Emory, who for all intents and purposes was a step up as far as roomies went. Quick to smile and quicker to laugh, I was besotted with his ability to stay happy in such a miserable environment. I desperately wanted to be his friend, and made that my main goal for the year.

Which was how, around mid-October, I ended up watching a goon squad of great, large oafs march squares around a field. It was Junior Reserve Officer Training Corps practice for the older kids, the ROTC-nazis who thought life revolved around status and shiny gold insignia. They twirled rifles loaded with actual guns, as opposed to normal JROTC units who bore neutered arms for fear they might actually hurt themselves. Weapons training at Yardale began in the fifth grade. I was looking forward to convincing my parents to get me out of there before that.

Emory wanted nothing more than to be in ROTC. He too had come from a military family, and he wanted to be just like his Air Force father, flying the vast open skies and shooting down America's enemies while breaking the speed of sound all the while. Even though I had no interest in following in my father's footsteps ever since he'd sent me off to Yardale to learn what boot camp was really like, I thought it was a noble goal. I thought Emory was perhaps the noblest person I'd ever met.

Perhaps he wouldn't have found me so noble, if he'd seen me hiding beneath the bleachers, wondering how to get close to him, how to think up a reasonable excuse for my presence on the fields. I never found out.

In the distance, I heard a great cracking boom, like a gun firing. No one else seemed to pay it any mind, presumably thinking it was a class practicing, but I'd memorized the schedules of every class; it paid to know which classes and fields would be empty and peaceful whenever I needed time alone.

Curious in a way I never would have been last year, I shuffled out from beneath the bleachers, narrowly avoiding Emory's gaze, and followed the well worn trail back to the rifle range. A large, open field stacked with hay bales and patriotically painted targets, I was familiar with the place in passing. I rarely hid there because the last place bullies needed to find me in was somewhere they had access to guns, but the range was on my route to the obstacle fields I frequented after lunch.

A group of students were milling around the range, behind the safety lines formed by bales of hay spray painted with a solid black line, a do-not-pass-go demarcation that looked every bit as dark and foreboding as it was meant to be. More than one student had accidental mishaps with guns, and it was a wonder the school's license to teach hadn't been rescinded each and every time. The students there were every age range, every height and build. In the center stood Christophe, a high caliber rifle balanced on his shoulder as he aimed directly at a distant target.

He hit it dead center.

I'd never known he was a marksman, and it was the first time I'd seen him outside of class since the previous year, and perhaps I was more than a little awed by his skill. I contribute all of that to the reason I gasped so loud, loudly enough that a few of the oldest students there swiveled to face me.

"Well, what have we here?" a tall, acne ridden eighth grader demanded, "A spy?"

"Sort of tiny, for a spy," a sixth grade murmured, "Guess that would be useful."

"D'you know what we do to spies?" the eighth grader asked, and while his tone was one of gentle amusement, I knew better. I'd already begun back up, preparing myself to run as fast as I could. I doubted it would be fast enough; most eighth graders at the school had been there since their first year. They had all the training Yardale could provide, and my measly year of obstacle courses and repetitive laps wouldn't qualify my being able to outrun him.

"I think you should tell him," the sixth grader put in, and we were beginning to draw the attention of the other students away from Christophe's shooting.

More and more eyes came to rest on me, as I stuttered, "I'm not- not-"

"'e iz not a spy," a new, familiar voice interjected. I could hear Christophe putting down the rifle with the easy practice of someone used to the action, "'e iz too much of a goody-two-shoes for zat."

"Then what iz he?" the eighth grader demanded, mocking Christophe's accent. The smaller boy's eyes darkened and he hefted up the rifle again, swinging it idly over his shoulder.

"Too curious for 'is own good," Christophe glared down his nose at me. I glared right back, but there was no heat in it. I wanted only to know what was going on, what Christophe had gotten himself into. By no means were we friends, but something about this entire scenario worried me. A third grader should not have had such capable hands when brandishing weapons.

"Oh," the eighth year's mouth curved, "Maybe he's looking to be a new recruit."

"Non," Christophe said quickly, too quickly, "'e wants nothing of ze sort. Right?"

When he looked at me in askance, I knew all he wanted me to do was agree. If I did, I could apologize and leave, which was sort of my modus operandi when it came to situations like these. If I stumbled upon bullies whaling on poor first graders, I said sorry and fled. I was gaining muscle mass and inches, but I was oft too scared to deal with the unknown. Which is why my teachers called me a lousy student, but that's a different tale altogether. So in all respects, this should have been just like those times I'd found groups ganging up on the innocent, the unsuspecting. I should have walked away.

But with Christophe's eyes boring into me, I realized that he was nothing if not an astute judge of character. I'd always been too curious for my own good, "What's going on? Recruit for what?"

The eighth grader's eyes lit up with a sort of feral joy at besting Christophe, but I could already tell the smaller boy wasn't planning on giving up.

"This is the Yardale Defense League."

"And what's that?" I asked, not at all impressed.

The eighth grader bent down so that his eyes were at my level, and he asked, "Here, the teachers only let you learn what they know. If you try to rise above that, they'll trample you back down."

I knew this. Our instructors were wise; they were some of the most sought after in the nation. But they did not take kindly to being outclassed by students. They tried to control our level of knowledge, and how quickly that level rose. If a student knew more about a subject than a teacher, that teacher would find a subject the student knew nothing about, and humiliate them in that subject until they'd once again learned their place. During our time in Yardale, the teachers never wanted to be surpassed.

"Do you know why that is?" the older kid continued, and when I shook my head he said triumphantly, "Because if we know more, if we can do more, they'll lose control. So here, we teach ourselves. Take Christophe, here. By the time he reaches the range in two years, he'll be better at marksmanship than Professor Montagne, an army sniper. And we taught him."

"'e iz not a fighter," Christophe insisted, looking like he might very well stomp his foot to emphasize the point. I couldn't figure out why he was so opposed to my joining his top secret club, but then, I thought that must be it. The place was top secret. His. Of course he didn't want the person who exiled him here to take part in the one thing he had for himself.

Which is why I decided I had to fuck with him. Not in those terms; my language hadn't quite reached that level of coarseness, although not for lack of trying. The boys at Yardale probably invented a good deal of the profanities that litter this Earth.

"I am," I insisted, "I mean, I want to be."

The eighth grader smiled at me, no warmth in it at all, "Good. DeLorne, hand him the rifle."

And that was how it started.

* * *

A/N: Ehhhhh. Short chapter. Kind of filler, but kind of how Gregory gets into guns? Yes? Yes. We will be seeing more of the YDL and Emory in later chapters, but- guys, guys, guys. Guess what the next chapter has? Can you guess? Do you know? I'll give you a hint. It's the show this whole fucking fic is based off of! It might not show up until the end of the chapter, but it will make an appearance, and that means chapter seven will be all South Park, all the time. That means the ships will begin! Woot. So please review, because then I'll get motivated to get off my butt and write it faster.


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